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1. 1A Global Business Journalism Incubator
Obsession Coverage: Finding Roots of Capitalism Through
Environmental Reporting
2016
Pipeline Estate, Nairobi, Kenya; credit Pro Journo
This Pro Journo coverage is supported by
2. 2 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
Economics and the environment are topics that easily fall into opinion and polemics; they are also topics
with powerful long-term narratives that dominate the mainstream media coverage of them. These narratives
themselves are often dominated by classical economic thinking where even alternative perspectives are too
often predictable.
Our dependence on mainstream economic thinking can be found in the news stories on today’s global
environmental crisis—on issues from the business of waste to environmental audit and measurement.
At the same time, there is increasingly widespread recognition among the mainstream media that
environmental coverage has not sufficiently engaged or informed audiences.
In launching its Climate Change front-page series recently, The Guardian said news media have largely failed
to cover what is potentially the most significant issue of the 21st century. It is far from alone in coming to this
conclusion—editors from a range of major publications have lamented how the news media appear ill-fitted
to covering the problem: It’s too much science, too long-term, too abstract, too repetitive, too global, too
local—to name but a few of the obstacles given.
Among these challenges is the dependence on mainstream economic thinking that makes responses to
environmental problems so often flat.
Through journalistic training and content, a team of seven environmental science and journalism students
from Belgium, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and Switzerland reported on environmental
economics, business and technology, as well as conference coverage, at the World Resources Forum 2015
(WRF) in Davos, Switzerland.
Two editors led the team, Sunmin Kim, Pro Journo’s executive director and an editor at The Economist
Intelligence Unit in New York, and Patrick Reevell, Pro Journo’s managing editor and a correspondent in ABC
News America’s Moscow bureau. Athena Tacet, a data-driven political journalist based in Canada, supported
the editorial team.
Part of the “obsession journalism” program was a conference that Pro Journo has covered since its inception.
The WRF is held biannually to exchange knowledge about the economic, political and environmental
implications of global resource use. You can review our previous coverage from 2011, 2012 (in Beijing) and
2013 at www.projourno.org. In 2015, the WRF convened under the theme “Circular Economy and
Resource Productivity.”
—Pro Journo, Editorial
ECONOMICS AND
THE ENVIRONMENT
4. 4 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
Reporter Insights
We asked our reporters to provide some insights into the reporting of their favorite stories. Author profiles are found on
page 40.
Into the Media
How the Media Can Improve Their Climate Coverage
By STELLA MIKHAILOVA, M.Sc. in sustainability and management, University of Bath
Stella started researching climate change back in Russia in her last year of university studies. As it
appeared to her, the complexity of the climate change problem required an urgent joint action by
everyone, from top-level politicians to ordinary people who put a lot of pressure on the environment in their everyday
living. What she found amusing was that despite all the efforts that some scientists, politicians and activists had made
and all the money spent on tackling the issue, many people were still either unfamiliar with the problem or did not
admit its existence.
Stella saw this as a serious problem and started asking what the reasons could be. Is it just a lack of communication
or some sort of deliberate misleading? From her own experience of reading content from major media outlets and
watching TV, she knew that the way media covers the issue is neither attractive nor interesting. So at the WRF she
decided to check with participants on their perspectives on the state of the media’s climate coverage.
While talking to experts, she realized that the question she raised is much more complex than it seems. While
journalists’ competence and choice of topic are important for covering issues like climate change, it was discovered
that existing business models in the media industry do not facilitate information sharing. Instead, artificial “debates” on
issues that already have consensus among experts mislead readers and create an atmosphere of uncertainty. While in
general there are many points of criticism, it looks as if modern technologies and new computer tools might help both
scientists and journalists understand each other.
Find all articles from the author on pages 15, 27, 31, 33 and 37.
The Business of Waste
Cleaning Up the E-Waste Recycling Industry
By JULIE ANN AELBRECHT, student in financial journalism, City University London and Aarhus University
For her article on the issue of electronic and electrical waste, U.K.-based Julie Ann Aelbrecht examined
the streams of old equipment that go from consumers in developed nations to dumping sites in the global south.
Over the past couple of years, several reports across Europe and the United States have caused outrage about the
sometimes toxic e-waste dumpsites in places like Agbogbloshie, Ghana, and Guiyu, China. The outrage was very rarely
followed up by any reflection. Where does it all come from? How did it get to these places? What are we doing to stop
it?
Aelbrecht was surprised to learn that in spite of international conventions and laws prohibiting the transportation of
electronic waste, hundreds of thousands of tons of broken computers, mobile phones and refrigerators make their way
from our homes to these dumpsites. Even more surprising was that the problem does not start when waste containers
are put on ships. The path the equipment travels has many stops, and every one of them is leaking waste that could be
properly recycled in its nation of origin.
With a team of international journalists, Aelbrecht is working on a larger report on electronic waste, thanks to a grant
from the Connecting Continents fund.
Find all articles from the author on pages 17, 20, 23 and 36.
Circular Economy at Home
Bringing People Together Through Money? Community Currency and Local Exchanges
By MELANIE STUDER, M.S., industrial ecology and science communication, Delft University of Technology
and Leiden University
A short, straight-news assignment, a conference keynote on grass-root innovations and a chase after Brixton pounds
in London triggered my curiosity about the world of community currencies and eventually led to this article. I was
fascinated by how we can rethink money—a concept often taken as a given in today’s society.
At the same time, I was intrigued to know why some community currencies seemed to grow while others quickly
died out. Through my reporting, I discovered a wealth of scientific research on the matter. While I found the research
interesting in itself, it was too dry and technical for the feature article I wanted to write. A light went on when our editor
suggested I could present the research findings to practitioners. In retrospect, I probably never had so much fun reading
and processing science. Interviewing practitioners made science come alive.
What I liked the most about writing this article is that not only did I learn about a totally new topic but I was also
intellectually challenged and inspired. Wrapping my head around the different types of community currencies, the
different factors influencing their success and the different dimensions of success felt like assembling a puzzle. Through
reporting, I could also observe my own ideas evolving. I used to think that money divides us; for the first time, I started
5. 5A Global Business Journalism Incubator
Reporter Insights
to think it can also bring us together. But—and perhaps almost contradictorily—I became less enthusiastic about
alternative forms of money, as I believe they are (unfortunately) likely to remain a marginal concept. That said, today I
am still thinking about how grass-roots and social innovations can scale up to become mainstream.
Find all articles from the author on pages 24, 26 and 35.
Environmental Audit Society
How to Avoid Another VW Scandal: The Right Mix of Carrots and Sticks?
By STEFAN HILSER, M.S. candidate, environmental studies and sustainability science, Lund University
As a German, Stefan has a natural interest in the automotive industry. The impact of car manufacturers
in Germany goes beyond just the automotive industry; 1 in 7 workplaces is directly or indirectly dependent on this
industry. So the Volkswagen scandal was particularly interesting to Stefan, especially because he had the impression
that people and the media don’t really see the bigger picture and that this is not only a Volkswagen problem. By
interviewing many experts and diving into background information, he got to see the bigger picture and how complex it
is.
Stefan started researching what this means in the wider context of governance and environmental monitoring of
big corporations. During the World Resources Forum, he had the opportunity to get some expert opinions firsthand
and, through that, became an expert himself. He was very busy doing many interviews, scouring for experts in the
participants’ list, running from one expert to another and rescheduling interviews when necessary. He was somewhat
flattered when Anders Wijkman of the Stockholm Environment Institute passed by while he was interviewing British
professor Paul Ekins and said, “You’re interviewing everybody here.” That’s my job, he thought.
In between and in the evenings, he was sitting in front of his laptop searching for more information and documents
by experts and critical lobbying organizations on the topic, as well as the most recent developments, verifying them
through other sources. For Stefan, it was also very interesting to take a closer look at the numbers behind the scandal.
Throughout this whole process, he gained even more respect for what it means to do good news reporting in a timely
but accurate manner.
The most valuable insight for Stefan was that as a reader he often doesn’t bother to look deeper into the articles he
reads. It is easy to develop an opinion on a topic based on this, but it is often not enough to actually understand it. As a
result, he realized that producing news himself was actually the better way of getting the news.
Find all articles from the author on pages 8, 29 and 37.
The Business of Waste
When Recycling Isn’t as Green as It Seems
By NICOLE PFEFFERLE, M.S. candidate, environmental studies and sustainability science, Lund University
The starting point of the article was the belief that recycling is a great thing. After moving to Sweden,
Nicole was introduced to a rigorous recycling system. Besides the standard recycling in Europe of organic waste and
batteries, the Swedes are eager to recycle plastic. Washed, dried and in the recycle bin—that’s the procedure. Even a
drying line to hang plastic is common in Swedish households. But rarely does someone question this increasingly fast
turnover of resources.
After researching a previous story on Sweden’s problem with having sufficient burning material for its incinerator
plants and the resulting need to import waste, Nicole decided to take a closer look at the recycling industry. One new
trend takes all the fuel from the incinerator plants and allows Swedes to keep using resources without having a bad
conscience.
With her education in environmental studies, she already had an opinion on the matter. For an objective article,
however, there was a need for expert opinions. The October 2015 World Resources Forum in Davos was the perfect
opportunity to interview experts about their experiences with and opinions on recycling. Not disclosing her own
opinions, our reporter learned pretty quickly that there are two sides to the recycling question. While there is total
agreement that recycling itself can pose a problem, recycling is the unquestioned solution for many.
When the circular economy is discussed at a conference, reuse and recycling are key. But what many don’t realize is
that getting to a circular economy requires a decrease in consumption. Recycling doesn’t result in a 100 percent reuse
rate. So why should recycling give us the feeling that it’s fine to constantly increase consumption? This is not the only
downside of recycling; it has also proved to be a pretty dirty business at times. Luckily, Julie Albrecht, from the writing
team, devoted herself to this topic.
Find all articles from the author on pages 13, 19, 21, 37 and 38.
6. 6 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
Talking About the Circular Economy
As the EU Buys Into the Circular Economy, Many Worry It May Be Impossible
By CHERRY TSOI, M.S. candidate, environmental studies and sustainability science, Lund University
For her article about the circular economy, the topic of focus at the 2015 World Resources Forum, Cherry spoke to
scientists, policy analysts, engineers, businesspeople and U.N. leaders alike to really learn what it was all about. As a
sustainability of science student, she was trained to be critical of any solutions to environmental problems that include
the word “economy” in the name. The World Resources Forum, teeming with experts on the topic, was the perfect
opportunity to deconstruct the circular economy.
December 2015 marked the European Commission’s second attempt at bringing to life a package of legislation to “close
the loop” on product life cycles. After a week of speaking with the legislation’s skeptics and enthusiasts, Cherry found
her own critical ideals softened. One thing that became apparent was the intrinsic desire of everyone at the conference
to reconcile a sustainable future with a deeply entrenched economic system, a task not in the least easy or simple. She
realized that while a critical stance is important in any process, each idea toward sustainability should be taken into
consideration, especially if it is a step in the right direction for the planet.
Find all articles from the author on pages 9, 25 and 35.
Training Program Rationale
As part of our media coverage, we have developed a journalistic training program. This program is intended to not only
better equip students to express alternative approaches to economic coverage of the environment. It also seeks to
improve their writing and critical approaches generally.
The environmental crisis is not just an economic issue. It concerns politics, scientific knowledge, industry and society as
well. A long-standing challenge in covering the crisis—as in many other areas—is translating complex science and theory
into engaging, condensed content.
Through journalistic content and multidisciplinary angles, we reported on the economics of the major environmental
issues (climate change, water scarcity, nature and land, and biodiversity, among others) with a focus on heterodox
economic viewpoints and solutions. In addition, we did so in a way that makes the subject engaging, informative and
entertaining.
This Pro Journo program provided selected students with opportunities to explore other ways of covering economic
aspects of the environmental crisis. The course trained students in the fundamentals of journalism—writing and
reporting—as well as in providing a framework and opportunity for thinking about how to cover the economic side of
the environmental crisis with alternative perspectives.
Students learned reporting and interview techniques, fact-verification skills and journalistic writing approaches. They
were trained to think more like journalists while retaining their strong specialized knowledge in economics, finance and
sustainability.
The program drew on Pro Journo’s previous experiences in conference reporting and “obsession journalism,” focusing
on training economics and social science students in hard news skills in the belief that these can be used to powerfully—
and colorfully—to express thoughts often confined to academia or the opinion pages.
As our students already bring alternative perspectives to environmental coverage, this program gave them the skills to
bring out original, telling stories that help them express those views.
With this in mind, the program’s participants explored fundamental questions about environmental and economic
reporting in their articles, including:
What is economic reporting on the environment? How does a writer or reader distinguish between mainstream and
alternative economic accounts in environmental reporting?
The training program aimed to help equip students to investigate, think and write about these issues in a critical and
inventive way, and to help them understand why environmental coverage is proving so challenging.
Pro Journo believes the techniques of journalism are powerful tools for translating crucial academic knowledge and
thoughts into engaging and more accessible content. We also believe that practicing rigorous journalism, and striving for
objectivity and concision of thought, is a highly positive process for young academics, who often are already caught up
in polemics.
Reporter Insights
7. 7A Global Business Journalism Incubator
President: Tim Lehmann, Switzerland
Executive Director: Sunmin Kim, U.S.
Managing Editor: Patrick Reevell,
Russia
Editors
Sunmin Kim, U.S.
Patrick Reevell, Russia
Bruce Janicke, U.S. (copy editor)
Reporters
Cherry Tsoi, Sweden, Lund University
Julie Albrecht, U.K., City University in
London and Aarhus University
Melanie Studer, Netherlands, Delft
University of Technology and Leiden
University
Nicole Pfefferle, Sweden, Lund
University
Stefan Hilser, Sweden, Lund University
Stella Mikhailova, U.K., University of
Bath
Waleria Schuele, Germany, Mercator
Fellow
Copyright 2016: Pro Journo
Association
Copyright for articles: Pro Journo
and reporters
Copyright for images: Pro Journo,
reporters, and Creative Commons
under non-commercial use
Imprint and Masthead
Pro Journo is a nonprofit organization in accordance with the Swiss Civil Code and listed in the commercial register (CHE-
418.394.491).
This obsession coverage was grant-supported by the Mercator Foundation
Switzerland.
The conservation of our environment with all its resources is essential for the future
of our society. How we best manage to live in a sustainable way and protect water
reserves, soils and ecosystems is a crucial question for politicians, economists, and our society as a whole. Only if we
assume responsibility in our everyday life, we can solve environmental problems. Mercator Foundation Switzerland
supports projects that tackle the increasing problem of resource depletion and develop solutions to preserve a healthy
environment.
By supporting Pro Journo, the foundation wants to encourage young, dedicated people to deal with current
environmental challenges. While writing for a wide audience in an international context, the reporters gain new insights
and take part in discussions about challenges as well as solutions. At the same time, their articles sensitize the general
public.
Mercator Foundation Switzerland is committed to a dedicated and open-minded society, which treats the environment
with respect and provides children and youth with equal education opportunities. For this purpose, the foundation
initiates projects and supports initiatives of organizations and institutions that share its objectives. The foundation
supports research and practical projects, empowers organizations in their development and aims to ensure that
experiences and knowledge are shared and spread. The support of young people in Switzerland plays a central role in
the foundation’s work.
www.stiftung-mercator.ch
Words From The Funder
Background to Pro Journo’s Obsession Journalism: Bringing the Spirit of
Blogging Into the Newsroom
The only thing that really matters for journalists in choosing an obsession to report on is this question: What makes you
happy? What makes you want to get up in the morning, eager to start working? Obsessions should give you immense
pleasure.
In a way, obsession journalism is about bringing the “spirit of blogging” to journalism. The subject is narrowly focused
and followed continually over time. These journalists are intensely concerned with a single subject, yet this opens up
a whole other set of questions that are somehow connected. This is the original advantage of blogging and reflects on
obsessives: “To try and follow the world through news reports is a very choppy experience, but an obsessive carries you
right along,” said Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, at the Pro Journo conference on “Building
an Obsessions Newsroom” in New York.
Pro Journo is a journalism social enterprise for young people interested in the economic and business aspects of today’s
toughest societal challenges. We amplify their views and concerns in the global media landscape through high-quality
and independent journalism. www.projourno.org
8. 8 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
What is heterodox economics? Economic theories that
underlie how we perceive and understand our natural
resources systems are critical to driving effective policy
change and business decision-making. Focusing on
heterodox economics and the environment for our
reporting at 2015’s World Resources Forum, we were
wondering what people at the conference had to say
about it, as it is a complex and diverse topic.
How do you define heterodox economics?
André Serrenho, research associate,
University of Cambridge
[It’s] non-neoclassical economics. Basically, economics
that is not based on the 1950s definitions but takes into
account other factors [other] than capital and labor as the
main factors of production, such as energy, materials and
land use.
Detlef Schreiber, GIZ (German
Corporation for International
Cooperation)
So far, I’m not using the term “heterodox economics,” and
I would have to guess what it means. I think it’s a kind of
diversity in economic conceptions, but it has no relevance
so far for my work.
*Editor’s note: Schreiber works on environmental
policy and institutional development at GIZ, which is a
state-controlled German company that specializes in
international development.
Jorn Verbeeck, Public Waste Agency of
Flanders, Belgium
That’s a good question. I think we don’t use the term at
all, because we come here from a “circular economy”
point of view, coming from a government administration.
We’re not as much into the scientific discussion on what
kind of economics do we need to move towards a circular
economy.
We’ve got the impression that it is becoming a semantics
discussion, and by [continuing to discuss] what is the term
you want to coin, you go around the debate of what is
needed on the ground, [which is] getting projects realized
and new initiatives launched.
Alice Kaudia, environment secretary,
Ministry of Environment, Water and
Natural Resources, Kenya
From a logical thinking and the prefix “hetero,” I think it is
economics that is looking at different dimensions of issues.
Garry Jacobs, chairman and CEO, World
Academy of Art and Science
We need an economy that’s not a
Newtonian science of how things work but makes us
aware of the fact that we have choices. We define the
economic system, and [then] we can make it work the
way we want it to, and the way it should work, so that it
promotes equity, development [and] maximizes human
welfare in a sustainable way.
I think heterodox economics today is more or less
everybody who feels there’s something wrong with the
existing paradigms. What we need is a new paradigm
which takes the best of that thinking and synthesizes it
in a higher level. So we tend to relate to the heterodox
economists because they’re the ones who know there’s a
problem, even if they’re not sure what the answer is. The
goal is human beings; it’s not growth, it’s not a particular
monetary system, [and] it’s not a particular philosophy.
Mila Popovich, researcher, University of
Colorado, Boulder
For me, the economy is about
relationships, exchange and values. One of the biggest
things we point out is that economics is not a hard-core
science and is also not a natural law either; it’s a man-
made construct.... These days we have a whole range
of economic approaches coming exactly from the place
of relations to values, to fulfillment and development
of our human potential. They range from economics
of happiness, [E.F.] Schumacher’s small and beautiful
notions, all the way to something I have been talking
about, economics of dignity, [and] to sacred economics of
Charles Eisenstein, or solidarity economics.
This is very revealing—that the notion of economics is
diversifying exactly according to those needs and values.
Word Play: How Do You Define Heterodox Economics?
By: STEFAN HILSER | October 15, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/10/20350/
Setting the Scene
9. 9A Global Business Journalism Incubator
As the EU Buys Into Circular Economy, Many Worry It May
be Impossible
By: CHERRY TSOI | December 18, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/12/the-circular-economy-is-impossible-to-achieve-so-what/
Talking About the Circular Economy
The “circular economy” is a concept attracting a lot of
attention in the European Union at the moment. It is not
only being proposed for the second time as an economic
strategy package by the European Commission; it was also
the theme for this year’s World Resources Forum (WRF) in
Davos, Switzerland.
Put briefly, a circular economy aims to move from a
traditional linear economic system of production and
consumption toward a closed-loop (circular) system. A
traditional linear system of production sees the extraction
of a resource, such as aluminum, to create a
valuable good, such as a soda can. In a
linear economy, the used can would
be thrown away as waste; in a
circular economy, the used can
materials are recycled into a
new can. Recycling is combined
with composting, repairing and
reusing materials in a closed-
loop system. The idea is to
eventually have economic
growth without environmental
degradation, which is referred
to as “decoupling.”
For many environmentalists,
policy-makers and, increasingly,
even some businesses, the circular
economy is being hailed as a practical
way to save the planet without killing the
economy. Quite simply, for many, including those
gathered in Davos at the WRF, it’s the future.
However, despite the many optimistic workshops focusing
on the how to implement “circular economy” policies,
dissent among many sitting in the audience was prolific,
with a large number of participants expressing unease
about the concept. For many, the circular economy seems
to be unfeasible within a world of globalized trade and
free market policy, and maybe even unattainable within
the very laws of physics.
“We have to be vigilant and not sing ‘Kumbaya’ with
our feet in the sand, saying all of the circular economy
is great, because we know that’s not true,” said
Elmer Rietveld. A spatial economics researcher at the
Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research,
he applies his knowledge of modeling transport systems,
civil engineering and database management to work on
circular economics.
An often recognized problem with the circular economy in
practice is its position in a globalized world—no country
is an island entirely of itself in the context of modern
globalization. Circular economies work on the assumption
that supply chain materials can be recycled and reused.
Trade globalization makes the circular economy difficult to
enforce, as materials and products circle the world. How
do you move toward a closed loop of no new material
inputs or outputs when your average consumer has the
option to buy a cheaper product imported from China?
Someone in the EU could very well be keeping someone in
China employed.
“If I substitute raw materials from Morocco for recycled
goods from Europe, it’s very well for the
person in Europe who might get a job out
of it, but people in Africa will suffer,”
Rietveld said.
These concerns surrounding global
trade and the circular economy
could be exacerbated in light
of a major impending trade
deal, the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership
(TTIP). A proposal for a free
trade agreement between the
European Union and the United
States, the TTIP would allow,
among other things, corporations
to sue countries for interfering with
free trade (under the Investor State
Dispute Settlement clause). This clause
would, for example, allow a company in China
that is exporting its goods to someone in Sweden to
sue the Swedish government for tariffs on international
imports it might put in place to support its own local
circular economy.
It’s a worry that echoed throughout the WRF. Some regard
the TTIP as dangerous, and other critics even say it has the
potential to kill the circular economy project as a whole.
“I think that if the TTIP [were] installed, we’ll be stopped
with this circular economy project. It will probably
be illegal,” said Arthur ten Wolde, manager of public
affairs for De Groene Zaak, a Dutch sustainable-business
association. He spends most of his time lobbying the
Dutch government to implement policies that favor the
circular economy, efforts that may be for naught if the
TTIP comes into existence.
Ashok Khosla of Development Alternatives likewise
opposes the TTIP. “Any treaty that puts the corporate
interests above those of the public is unacceptable. The
TTIP is criminal. It is a very one-sided and dangerous
treaty, it’s got the seeds of its own destruction built into it.
How long can you go on destroying the world without at
10. 10 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
some point destroying yourself?” Khosla, who is co-chair
of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP)
International Resource Panel and former co-president of
the Club of Rome, was very clear that this was his personal
opinion and not that of his constituents.
Aside from the complications of enforcing a local circular
economy in a globalized, free trade world, the technical
feasibility of a circular economy is being contested.
When the idea of a circular economy is deconstructed,
its fundamental ideal boasts continued economic growth
without environmental degradation, something the
physical laws of science do not allow.
“There cannot be a circular economy if we are looking
at the total of [the world’s] material flows,” said Michael
Lettenmeier of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate,
Environment and Energy. “This picture of the circle will
always be a small part of the truth. There will never be a
perfect circle where nothing is going in and out. That’s not
possible in a thermodynamic point of view—energy needs
material flows and so on.”
Lettenmeier presented a case study of the circular
economy in Germany, which showed limitations
to the idea of decoupling economic growth from
environmental degradation. According to his study, when
you take imports into account, there are still negative
environmental effects. This is always going to be the case
in a globalized world.
“It’s still not absolute decoupling. It’s not absolute
reduction in natural resource use, which we need,” he
said.
But some suggest there is a solution: changing the
parameters of measuring healthy economic growth.
Human welfare is, by a huge margin, gauged by gross
domestic product, the monetary value of goods and
services within a country. Although there are other
wellness indicators, the usual driver for policy and
decision-making in a nation is the amount of money that
can be made.
“We need to decouple ourselves from the idea of material
growth. That’s what GDP is. Though other indicators
of well-being exist, they are rarely taken into account,”
said Thomas Wright of Sustainable Bizness Practices.
These indicators include the Human Development Index,
the Human Poverty Index and the Happy Planet Index,
which include, in various combinations, the statistics of
life expectancy, human education, standard of living and
ecological footprint.
Despite these many concerns, there may still be promise
in the circular economy package. Rietveld reminds us of
the bigger picture: the sustainability incentive behind the
circular economy.
“It’s the planet—less erosion, less toxicity, less greenhouse
gas emissions. It is always a win, almost. Almost every
modeling exercise shows it. Anyone not supporting the
transition to a circular economy is jeopardizing the future
of one’s business and society,” he said.
While absolute decoupling of economic growth and
environmental degradation may not be possible, the
circular economy could still jump-start a paradigm shift
toward an economy that doesn’t harm the environment.
“I think the concept of it is that we can keep materials for
as long as possible in the [closed] loop, from the beginning
of the supply chain,” said Vasileios Rizos of the Centre for
European Policy Studies. “This is really a step forward, and
it’s a positive thing. It’s a way of changing our thinking.”
Whether the circular economy is a good idea or not, the
European Commission has just announced its own circular
economy package, including legislative proposals for
how European countries can achieve it. How the package
is received will have an impact on not only European
economies but on communities and businesses globally.
As Ligia Noronha, director of the UNEP’s Division of
Technology, noted, “The EU does have a catalytic role in
these things. When they come up with an idea, people do
pick it up.”
11. 11A Global Business Journalism Incubator
Since 2008, raw materials have had a high priority on
the European Union’s agenda. Faced with growing
competition from new economic players such as China,
India and Brazil, the EU has to work harder to secure its
share in the global commodity market. Partnered with the
U.S. and Japan, the EU conducts extensive studies on so-
called “critical” materials for its industries and initiates
strategic partnerships with resource-exporting countries
such as Chile, Uruguay, Colombia and Argentina.
“After 400 years of mining in Europe, many deposits have
been depleted. We now have to look elsewhere,” says
Christian Hagelücken, head of EU advocacy for Umicore, a
global materials technology and recycling group. He is also
a member of the expert panel developing the EU’s Raw
Materials Initiative, a diplomatic mission meant to secure
a raw materials supply for the EU.
The outcome of these efforts is crucial for Europeans’
current and future lifestyles: Digital communications, as
well as the automotive and energy sector, rely heavily on
raw materials but face supply shortages. If the EU intends
to reach its declared goal of a competitive low-carbon
economy by 2050—which would require a reduction of
the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 percent,
compared with 1990—it has to secure a continuing flow of
critical materials. Both wind turbines and solar panels, for
instance, cannot be produced without “rare earths” and
other critical elements.
Hagelücken explains that the EU uses two indicators to
identify critical materials: first, that a material is crucial
to an EU industry and, secondly, that it faces supply risks.
The risk may be that there are only limited deposits of
the material or because the deposits are concentrated in
a limited number of countries (like rare earths in China).
Finally, materials are deemed critical if their deposits are
in areas that are environmentally difficult to access or in
politically unstable countries, like cobalt in the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
But for many experts on critical materials, it is not so
much the scarcity of the materials now but whether the
environmental damage needed to extract them is worth
it. “We used to think that we would run out of resources,
but now we realize that we are more likely to run out of
ecosystems,” says Bernhard Wehrli, a professor of aquatic
chemistry at ETH Zurich, in a publication by focusTerra,
an earth science research and information center at the
university.
Copper, which is widely utilized in construction and
electronics, illustrates this argument. Although the
Unlimited Resources, Limited Environment
By: WALERIA SCHUELE | December 26, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/12/unlimited-resources-limited-environment/
Talking About the Circular Economy
12. 12 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
metal has been used since 3000 B.C., the U.S. Geological
Survey estimates there are still 6.3 million tons of copper
untouched in the ground. This is 340 times as much as the
amount extracted until 2014.
One of the last undeveloped copper districts in the
world lies in the Ecuadorian Amazon, in the so-called
southeastern Ecuadorian “copper belt,” which extends
over an area of 2,080 square kilometers under one of
the world’s biodiversity hot spots. The extraction of the
belt’s copper would lead to the clearance of 5,000 acres
of virgin cloud forest and the depletion and pollution of
surrounding waterways.
“The challenge is not the amount of available resources
but whether we can use them responsibly and sustainably.
In particular, mineral resources are still available in great
quantities. However, it might be debated if it is economic
to extract them, considering the environmental impact
of extraction and the amount of energy needed to use
to extract,” says Christoph Heinrich, a professor of raw
materials geology at ETH Zurich and president of the Swiss
Geotechnical Commission, in a publication by focusTerra.
The definition of critical materials was the subject of
an extensive workshop, conducted by Switzerland’s
Foundation for Rare Metals, during October’s World
Resources Forum in Davos, Switzerland. While the
workshop revealed disagreement about the definition of
critical materials, it spotlighted a growing feeling among
experts about the need to fundamentally redefine how
resources are treated.
“There are three categories of solutions when we face
critical materials,” explains Hagelücken. “One, we need
to secure more supply sources, meaning establish new
trading partnerships or fight trade restrictions. When
China imposed export restrictions on rare earths, the EU
initiated proceedings at the Word Trade Organization. This
helped to re-establish a crucial supply source. Second, we
need to get better at recycling. And third, we need to be
more efficient in our use of resources.”
For those promoting resource efficiency, a currently
favored phrase is “circular economy.” That is, in theory, an
economy without waste, where end products are returned
to the beginning of the supply chain and reused, either
once again as new materials or as energy supplies for the
production of new products.
One of the central characteristics of the “circular
economy” is the shift from ownership to services, where
companies lease their products instead of selling them.
This setup is meant to provide a major incentive to invest
more in the longevity of the products, with companies
more concerned about being able to continue renting
them to consumers than producing new ones.
“We need to get better at prolonging the lives of the
products we use,” says Thomas Graedel, a professor of
industrial ecology at Yale University.
It’s a particularly relevant concept for critical materials,
where more efficient use of them is seen as essential if
their exhaustion—and, more urgently, the environmental
damage needed to extract them—is to be avoided. But
for a circular system to exist, better recycling rates are
required. “For better recycling to happen, the design of
products needs to be changed,” said Stefanie Hellweg, a
professor of ecologic systems design at ETH Zurich. “At the
moment, the recyclability is not considered in the design
stage.” For example, it is now technically very challenging,
and therefore uneconomical, to recycle the resources
used in smartphones.
Many resource analysts believe the solution to this is the
creation of so-called “modular devices,” where parts of an
electronic device are easily (and cheaply) popped out and
replaced. Fairphone, which is selling a phone essentially
made of blocks (looking not unlike Lego) in which every
part is removable, is trying to promote this idea. The
idea is that easily replaceable parts will prolong the life
of devices, reducing waste as well as the need to keep
producing whole new products.
“The future is with modular devices,” said Karsten
Schischke of Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability
and Microintegration, in a WRF presentation. In his view,
this will not only make recycling easier but also improve
the longevity of many electronics products. At the
moment, a smartphone’s life span is often determined by
its touchscreen or battery—an example of very inefficient
design.
For products—like smartphones—that require critical
materials in their manufacture, such practices could be
important in making supply chains for them sustainable.
It’s something likely to attract more and more attention as
the environmental (and financial costs) of extracting the
materials continue to grow.
13. 13A Global Business Journalism Incubator
“The time will come when we regret…not acting today,”
predicts British professor Paul Ekins. Since 1987, when
the World Commission on Environment and Development
started publishing the Brundtland Report, a consensus
has been reached that infinite demand on a planet
with limited resources is impossible in the long run. A
particularly popular concept in environmental circles
about how to solve this problem is the “circular economy.”
But while most participants at October’s World Resources
Forum (WRF) in Davos, Switzerland, agreed on the need
for more responsible consumption, their opinions were
divided on which path will lead to a circular economy. At
the core of the debate is division over whether consumers
can make a change or if they need to be forced into
more sustainable behaviors. Some believe in bottom-
up initiatives and grass-root movements resulting in
an intrinsic shift; others are more skeptical and believe
regulations will be needed to break current consumption
patterns.
“Consumer demand can best be influenced by prices,” said
Elkins, director of the Institute for Sustainable Resources
at University College London and a professor of resources
and environmental policy. A strong believer in regulations,
he sees fiscal instruments as the greatest lever for
effective change. For example, he would introduce a tax
on virgin materials. The resulting revenues could be used
to decrease other taxes connected to production, thereby
making recycled materials not only relatively cheaper but
also more attractive, he explained.
Anders Wijkman, senior adviser to the Stockholm
Environment Institute, is likewise in favor of tax
regulations. However, instead of increasing taxes on raw
materials, he suggested removing taxes on secondhand
materials, encouraging reuse. “They have been taxed
before,” he said. “Why tax them twice?”
But when it comes to introducing these regulations,
Ekins is less optimistic. “There is a perception in the
governments that we have too many regulations,” he
said. Business lobbies are often particularly opposed to
the introduction of new legislation, as they fear reduced
competitiveness in international markets.
International regulations face even greater obstacles.
They require international conventions, which usually take
many years to be implemented. Ekins explained that taxes
are problematic not from a behavioral point of view but
because they need political support. As he put it, “Why
should people who don’t care about resource efficiency
vote in politicians who increase the prices of the goods
that they like?” From his perspective, environmental
policies require a bottom-up shift in awareness among
consumers about the implications of current consumption
patterns.
On the other side of the debate is Ursula Tischner of
Europe’s Sustainability Maker project, which aims to
encourage positive action among people themselves.
“I’m not frustrated, but I’m aware how slowly things are
moving, and I would like to see some more radical and
fast changes,” she said. A believer in “crowd intelligence,”
she created a business incubator and sustainability hub in
the form of an open online platform called Innonatives.
The platform, developed out of a European innovation
initiative, tries to match people who have an idea for
a sustainable solution with those who want to solve a
particular problem. Online participants can either consult
the community by opening a sustainability challenge
or propose their own solutions. The platform has been
online since last year and counts more than a thousand
users, who have a relatively young average age of 24. The
submitted ideas are rated by the online community as well
as by an expert committee, and promising projects receive
funding from the initiative. This year’s winner is a project
called Coco Pot & Soil, a gardening pot made out of coco
fiber with coco soil, which is environmentally friendly and
resource-efficient.
A shift in consumption patterns requires well-informed
custo-mers and comparable data. Klaus Wiesen, project
coordinator at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate,
Environment and Energy in Germany, introduced me to
a collaborative project that is meant to encourage this.
‘It’s Gonna Be Messy, It’s Gonna Be Slow’:
The Way to a Circular Economy
By: NICOLE PFEFFERLE | December 9, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/12/its-gonna-be-messy-its-gonna-be-slow-the-way-to-a-circular-economy/
Talking About the Circular Economy
14. 14 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
MyEcoCost is a tool that allows consumers to discover
the environmental costs of a particular product, service
or technology. The project is intended as a new approach
for measuring resource efficiency by accounting for all
environmental costs along the value chain. The idea is to
provide the customer with the opportunity to compare
products on their environmental impacts and eventually
make a well-informed purchasing decision.
Wiesen said the site has already shown that knowledge
and beliefs can be as important as price in how people
consume. “Consumers are not primarily driven by
price. We can already see a great willingness to pay an
additional price for environmentally fair produced goods,”
he said.
Many others, though, have a less generous view of
consumer behavior. Roland Weippert, a sales manager at
Cleantech Switzerland and a recycling specialist, said he
believes “consumers are like sheep.” Observing consumer
behavior in developed nations has made him lose faith in
consumer power. For Weippert, what’s required is clear:
“We need regulations to make a change.”
Ekins walks a path between these two points of view,
convinced that what’s needed is a combination of
regulations and shifts in behavior driven by society. “I’m
very much up for trying anything that works,” he said.
At this year’s WRF, vegetarianism was set as the default
dietary option when registering for the conference. Meat-
eaters, for a change, had to make the extra effort, signing
up for a meat meal in advance. While this increased the
numbers of vegetarians at the conference (and might even
lead to long-term changes in diet for some participants),
Ekins said he doesn’t believe an idea like nudging can
cause the big shifts needed.
“It’s gonna be slow, it’s gonna be messy, but we have to
hope that we are moving in the right direction,” he said.
Tischner also said big changes will be needed and doubts
that an initiative such as her own Innonatives can do
enough. But she sees that there is nothing else to do but
try. “The neoliberal idea of having infinite growth on a
planet with limited resources and space is stupid, but I
don’t want to wait for the system to change,” she said.
Hopefully, she quoted Margaret Mead: “Never doubt
that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever
has.”
“Never doubt that a
small group
of thoughtful,
committed citizens
can change
the world;
indeed,
it’s the only thing
that ever has.
— Margaret Mead
”
15. 15A Global Business Journalism Incubator
The U.N. climate change conference (COP21), which
ended recently in Paris, was billed as potentially the
last chance to obtain a major global treaty on climate
change, and as an event that could help set the direction
the world’s major economies will take over the coming
decades.
At the heart of negotiations among developing nations
was the concept of the “green economy.” It’s an idea that
was introduced almost 30 years ago but only recently
became a keystone in the climate change debate.
Resource economist Anil Markandya is the father of this
idea, and in the run-up to COP21, Pro Journo spoke with
him.
In 1989, Markandya, as co-author, published “Blueprint
for a Green Economy,” which would become his most
important book. It was one of the first attempts to guide
policymakers and academics in establishing tools for
assessing the environment in economic terms and to
include its value in economic decision-making.
Even 30 years ago, the green economy concept seemed
to encapsulate most of the key principles and practices
needed to make the world’s economy sustainable. But as
the debates at the COP21 conference demonstrated, there
is still no agreement or substantial political commitment
on how to make the transition to a green economy and
what role it would play in the battle
against climate change.
Anil Markandya
Originally, Markandya defined the concept as an
economy “where the environment has its proper
place.” Because his book was published right after the
Brundtland Commission, which defined global sustainable
development, his green economy was quickly placed
alongside the increasingly popular idea of sustainability.
Since then, many similar concepts have appeared, such as
green growth, low-carbon economy and bio-economy, to
name a few.
“People like to think about new words,” Markandya said
when I met him. At 69, the Nobel Peace Prize winner rises
at 7 a.m. He works until evening, with quick breaks for
breakfast and lunch.
“Basically, there is the same idea of bringing together
the environment and the economy, and the society. And
that all these important concepts are taking into account
in the process of making decisions about our lives, our
consumption, our production and the way we organize our
activities,” he said.
Markandya said all those ideas are varying names for
essentially the same thing. But despite this glut of
terms, it was the green economy that was chosen as the
economic base for sustainable development at the United
Nations’ Rio+20 summit on sustainable development in
2012, and it remains a core concept for those combating
climate change.
Though successful now, it took many years for Markandya
to bring his idea to life. His own rise has largely followed
that of the concept he created. Things were very different
back in the 1960s when he started his research career in
Britain, where he arrived after fleeing Pakistan with his
family and a stint in Uganda. At the time, the U.K. was
suffering from an economic slowdown—the emphasis was
on living standards and much less about their impact on
the environment. In the environmental economics field,
there were few experts and little interest.
Like many others, Markandya studied economics as well as
econometrics, which was popular at that time, but he felt
he would contribute less in these fields than he would in
environmental economics. So he persuaded his supervisor
at the London School of Economics to accept an unusual
topic where, among other things, he tried to put values on
things that did not have a value before, like air and noise
pollution. This was the beginning of his mission to achieve
a global commitment to the incorporation of social and
environmental targets into classical short-term economic
thinking.
Eighteen years later, in 2007, Markandya shared the Nobel
Peace Prize as a lead author of the Fourth Assessment
Report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. In it, he examined various scenarios and trends
on how the world would develop, depending on different
CO2 emissions levels. It was a recognition of Markandya’s
contribution to environmental policy, but also an
illustration of how his own interests in the green economy
had persistently moved toward climate change. He now
runs a climate change research center at the invitation
of the Basque government in Spain (it was named Best
Climate Change Think Tank in Europe in 2012 by the
International Center for Climate Governance).
While the United Nations Environment Programme
defines a green economy as one that results in improved
How Anil Markandya Created the Idea of a ‘Green Economy’
By: STELLA MIKHAILOVA | December 16, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/12/how-anil-markandya-created-the-idea-of-a-green-economy/
Talking About the Circular Economy
16. 16 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
human well-being and social equity, as well as significantly
reduced environmental risks and damage, over time
different countries have shaped their own conceptions
of the idea differently. For example, Sergey Bobylev, a
Russian expert in the green economy, says that for his
country the most critical issues are natural resource
depletion and energy intensity reduction, while most
other developed countries are focused on building low-
carbon economies.
But increasingly, climate change has become the central
preoccupation of green economics, just as it has for
Markandya. Climate change is now the main topic on
the green economy agenda among developed countries,
according to Bobylev.
Although many developed and developing countries are
open to his ideas, Markandya acknowledges that they still
face considerable resistance elsewhere, particularly in the
U.S. The United States is the “society which is probably the
most difficult to convince on sustainability issues,” he said.
At COP21 in Paris, Markandya was to present a paper on
how water can be used more efficiently in the future, in
light of climate change. He also planned to continue his
discussions with governments to reduce CO2 emissions
by 2030. If the U.S. and China make a commitment at the
conference to reduce their emissions, he said, it will be a
huge impetus for development of low-carbon economies.
He said a cultural change is needed among people so
they recognize that it is possible to have both good living
standards and a cleaner environment.
“But more than anything else, we now need a big political
commitment,” he said.
17. 17A Global Business Journalism Incubator
Cleaning Up the E-Waste Recycling Industry
By: JULIE ANN ALBRECHT | December 23, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/12/cleaning-up-the-e-waste-recycling-industry/
The Business of Waste
Upon opening a shipment of computers it had received
through the International Children’s Fund (ICF), a
Ghanaian school discovered the equipment sent was 15
years old. Most of the computers needed replacement
parts, parts that weren’t available anymore. In the end,
the school managed to get only a single computer working
again.
While the ICF had good intentions, a fake charity had
handed it a container of what was meant to be workable
secondhand material that was actually closer to its end of
life—that is, effectively waste. That unfortunate Ghanaian
school is only one victim in a long chain of corruption,
theft and organized crime that stretches from Brussels to
Cape Town.
This is the global trade in electronic waste, or e-waste. It
is estimated to be worth over $19 billion and leaves a trail
of criminality behind it. The flow of discarded electronics
follows a route where European countries turn a blind eye
to theft and major companies bend and break recycling
rules to get electronics to developing markets, where the
waste disappears into dangerous ad hoc dumps. There,
the waste is often dealt with by illegal recyclers in ways
that are catastrophic to the environment and human
health.
But while e-waste is a dirty business, some are trying to
clean it up, mostly by bringing these informal recyclers
slowly into the regulated recycling industry.
The starting point for the trail of dirty recycling is Europe.
According to the European Union, an estimated quarter
of a million tons of electronic waste gets shipped out
to developing nations every year. Since 1992, the Basel
Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements
of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal has made all
international shipping of such waste illegal. The EU
produces approximately 10 million tons of electrical and
electronical equipment a year. Officially, it recovers 3.5
million.
“Say you get tired of a computer. Maybe you’ll leave it in
the street, maybe you take it to the collection point or to a
charity, maybe it makes it to the plant, maybe it is taken to
the harbor. There’s a lot of different points in the recycling
chain, and every single one is leaking like hell,” says
Cosima Dannoritzer, director of “The E-waste Tragedy,”
a documentary that sheds light on what happens with
discarded European electronics.
European law requires the inclusion of a recycling fee in
the price of electronics. So when your computer breaks
down, it should find its way into the recycling system and
be processed because you’ve already paid for that. In
reality, though, up to 75 percent of electronics disappear
along the way.
The problem is not limited to any particular region of
Europe. “In Spain, young people steal e-waste because
they’re unemployed,” says Dannoritzer. “In the U.K.,
the privatization of the sector has made prices too
low to properly recycle, so plants start to do double
bookkeeping,” she adds. “There’s a large secondhand
market in Germany, but the line between secondhand and
broken is really blurry.” Every country seems to have its
own particular problem, but the result is almost always
the same.
At one collection point in Spain, the employees go for
lunch at 2:30 pm. At 2:31, people crawl through holes
made in the fence to steal dumped parts. Dannoritzer’s
film contains several scenes like this one, illustrating one
of the many leaking points in the e-waste chain. “During
that lunch break, three individuals came in, one of them
dressed up in a little fluorescent jacket, so he could
rummage around unnoticed. Another was a teenager with
a shopping trolley,” the director says.
The recycling fee for a refrigerator in Spain is typically 20
euros (U.S. $22) and is paid by the consumer. Dannoritzer
says one particular group—some working in the collecting
points, others driving the trucks or working at the
recycling plants—stole half a million fridges and extracted
the precious metals to sell before dumping the rest. At 20
euros per fridge, that is a 10 million euro (U.S. 11 million)
loss for the authorities—and profit for the thieves—
even leaving aside the toxic pollution risk posed by the
cannibalized fridges.
This stolen waste then goes to storage facilities, which
aren’t too hard to spot, according to Dannoritzer. “To
recycle well is expensive, so when you see a large facility
18. 18 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
or a hall, or a pile of rubbish under the elements without
machinery, they’re usually not properly recycling them.
That’s a storage facility to fill up containers.”
A recent EU report called waste management one of
the industrial sectors most prone to corruption. Every
year, 250,000 tons of e-waste don’t reach their intended
destination due to a lack of funding, the activities of
criminal gangs, and companies and officials choosing to
look the other way along the recycling trail. Instead, the
waste is stolen, stripped and sold to be put on containers.
These containers are then shipped to developing
countries, where their contents are often dealt with
under illegal, dangerous circumstances. One of the main
destinations for European e-waste is Africa.
“Under the guise of giving poorer countries access to IT,
a lot of junk gets into Africa,” says Mathias Schluep, head
of Sustainable Recycling Industries (SRI). “The motivation
is not bad, but the business model doesn’t leave room to
test every single computer in every single container. On
the other side of the equation, when the ship arrives in
China or Ghana, people know that not all of it will work.
That is how business works.”
Schluep’s organization works in Ghana, Egypt and Peru,
where rates for formal recycling are around 20 percent,
which means that the rest of it happens in what are, at
best, semi-illegal circumstances. SRI’s projects aim to
formalize a lot of these small-scale, informal operations.
Sampson Atiemo, local project coordinator for SRI in
Ghana, explains how the organization tries to pull these
illegal recyclers into the formal industry. “There are people
in the informal sector who are ready to do things the right
way. We’ll identify them and bring them up,” he says.
Atiemo estimates that 80 percent of the Ghanaian e-waste
sector is controlled by the informal sector, overshadowing
formal recycling practices, but he believes SRI can change
this. “Once we identify the illegal recyclers, we look at
their technology, their challenges and what support they
need. We train them, send them to the STEP e-waste
academy, change the way they do things,” he says. SRI
trains the illegal recyclers in methods meeting regulatory
standards, getting them out of illegal practices. In doing
so, it hopes to bring an end to practices like burning waste
in open air.
Schluep believes that along with the waste, the criminality
gets imported. “Africa is not corrupt because of the
culture. It’s because the Europeans brought it over there
with their business. It’s not an African thing or an Asian
thing or a Latin thing. It’s us, and it’s embarrassing.”
Besides specific initiatives like SRI, in some countries the
waste industry itself is attempting to bring illegal recyclers
into the formal sector, hoping to reform them. In South
Africa, collection and treatment of e-waste is not yet part
of the legal framework. The Southern African E-waste
Alliance (SAEWA), a nationwide syndicate representing
e-waste recyclers, is developing a blueprint to get the
recycling industry involved in the issue.
“Because the entry-level requirements are so high,
South Africa has only a handful of fully legally compliant
recyclers for e-waste, so most of the processing is done
illegally,” SAEWA head Susanne Karcher explains.
SAEWA started out working only with the legally
compliant companies, but after realizing that this left out
the vast majority of the industry, it decided to begin trying
to include informal and illegal recyclers as affiliates.
“You need the big shark in every ocean, but you also need
the bottom-feeders, the little fish that can go under the
stone,” says Karcher. “I believe we have to capitalize on
that instead of squashing those people, but involve them
into the economy.”
In any case, she says, large legal recyclers are already
making use of the small informal collectors. South Africa
generates 360,000 tons of e-waste every year, and only
10 percent makes it to formal recyclers. “As far as the
destination of the rest, your guess is as good as mine, but
we know that 30 to 40 percent of the business of the big
recyclers is people that directly sell to them with their
trolleys from the street. They’re buying from the informal
sector.”
As it is, there are perverse incentives for recycling the
informal way. “You get paid less when you come to a
recycler with a complete unit than if you come with a
printed wire board or a copper bit. So people rather
smash the computer outside of the quarters and bring
in the bits that pay. But a lot of material is lost this way,”
Karcher explains. Because the international demand for
the precious materials contained in certain parts of the
e-waste is so high, the low-value parts of it, like the plastic,
are unwanted by the big recycling companies, which
therefore pay less for whole pieces containing them.
By working with the informal providers, SAEWA believes
it can limit loss, reduce informal activities to collection
only (discouraging the often dangerous efforts at recycling
itself) and better represent those working in the industry.
“We want to be the voice of the industry, which includes
the formal and the informal sector. We cannot pretend
they don’t exist. They know they are illegal, but they want
to better themselves, and that’s good enough for us,”
Karcher says.
With e-waste recycling an ever larger industry, it seems
there is little alternative but to take those involved in
its shadowy side into account. Dannoritzer tells another
story from Spain. At a public city council’s collection point,
they kept the e-waste container right next to the fence,
far away from the others and far away from the cameras.
Just outside, a large truck belonging to a scrap dealer was
parked. “People’s awareness is key,” she says. “Where we
see rubbish, they see treasure.”
19. 19A Global Business Journalism Incubator
Sweden’s Backward Waste Problem
By: NICOLE PFEFFERLE | October 7, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/10/swedens-backwards-waste-problem/
The Business of Waste
It probably won’t surprise many that Sweden is good at
recycling. While Americans recycle only 24 percent of
their household waste, in Sweden almost 99 percent of
all waste is reused and only around 1 percent ends up
in landfills. According to Avfall Sverige, Sweden’s waste
management company, virtually every gram of the half
ton of household waste that every Swede produces each
year is recycled.
This is usually thought of as a good thing, but it has
brought an unexpected consequence: Sweden now
recycles so much of its own waste that it no longer has
enough to burn for the incinerator plants that provide a
significant portion of the country’s energy. The strange
result is that while most of the world is being buried
under its own waste, Sweden is actually importing it.
In Sweden, 50 percent of all household waste is used
to produce energy. This amounts to over 2 million
tons of household waste, burned every year in Avfall
Sverige’s waste-to-energy plants. Currently, 32 plants
across Sweden consume rubbish that cannot be reused,
providing 250,000 households with electricity and
810,000 with heating, meaning that nearly 20 percent of
all Swedish homes are kept warm by waste. As a result,
Sweden is the current global leader in waste-to-energy
technology.
Faced with such demand and less and less waste at home,
Avfall Sverige has had to turn to outside sources for its
garbage. In 2014, the company imported over 1.4 million
tons of waste, almost three-quarters of the amount it gets
from Sweden’s own households. Most of this comes from
Norway, Ireland and Great Britain, which pay Sweden for
freeing them of their garbage mountains.
Avfall Sverige says that its plants not only help dispose
of Sweden’s waste but also reduce the country’s carbon
emissions. According to the company, energy production
from waste can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2.2
million tons annually, which is as much CO2 as 680,000
petrol-run cars emit on average per year.
But not everyone agrees that the plants are so green.
Critics doubt their efficiency, saying the carbon dioxide
released during the energy production process is
disproportionate to the actual usable energy produced.
The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives argues
that waste-to-energy plants even “contribute to climate
change by emitting more carbon dioxide than the oil
industries.” Some critics also worry that using waste as
fuel undermines efforts at reducing wastage in the first
place, as well as the recycling process in the long run,
because it makes waste a valuable resource.
Avfall Sverige disputes these arguments. “Waste-to-energy
is an environmental, financial, safe and stable contribution
to the country’s energy supply,” says Ingegerd Svantesson,
a company spokesman.
More immediately, though, Sweden’s waste energy plants
may be more at risk from other countries copying their
example. Norway and Great Britain are both on their way
to building their own waste-to-energy plants; Swedish
company Ramboll is advising the former on building new
facilities.
If these countries start reusing their own waste, the
Swedes, weirdly enough, might be almost too green for
their own good.
“Waste-to-energy is
an environmental,
financial, safe and
stable contribution
to the country’s
energy supply.
— Ingegerd Svantesson,
company spokesman
”
20. 20 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
Doubts Raised About Green Claims of New Belgian
Waste-to-Energy Plant
By JULIE ANN AELBRECHT | December 30, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/12/doubts-raised-about-green-claims-of-new-belgian-waste-to-energy-plant/
The Business of Waste
Port of Antwerp proudly announced last May that the
Saudi company Energy Recovery Systems (ERS) will
invest 3.7 billion euros (roughly U.S. $4 billion) in a green
project at one of its docks. The Saudi company’s waste-to-
chemical plant will turn unrecyclable plastic into “green”
urea and ammonia through gasification, which could be
fed into a cluster of chemical companies already present
at Antwerp’s port. The Dutch company Howa International
as its sole vendor for the waste.
The Port of Antwerp lauded the project as 40 percent
more energy-efficient than a classical waste incinerator,
but doubts about how green the project actually is have
quickly developed. Underwhelming results from previous
attempts at similar projects, doubts about the project’s
feasibility report and the uncertain final destination
of the plant’s products all make the grounds for port
management’s and city officials’ initial euphoria seem less
and less certain.
The Plant
When completed, the plant is expected to process roughly
3.5 million tons of unrecyclable plastic waste into around
1.2 million tons of green urea and 645,000 tons of green
ammonia every year. Located on a now empty plot on the
port’s Delwaide dock, the plant would become part of
Antwerp’s cluster of petrochemical companies and form
a closed system that, its constructors claim, will remove a
major potential pollutant from the Dutch environment.
One day after the project was announced, it was reported
that a feasibility study had been completed. The study was
done by the Flemish Institute for Technological Research
(VITO), an organization focusing on clean technology and
sustainable development that is listed on ERS’s website as
a “partner.”
The study is not available to the public, but according
to VITO, the plant would combine a gassing installation
with a chemical synthesis plant for ammonia and urea,
which will be linked in a closed system without either a
chimney or exhaust—meaning without any emissions.
A VITO analyst, Ivo Vanderreydt, said the environmental
impact study showed that “the ERS concept for waste
management scores better than classical waste burning
and electricity production.” But there are two problems
with this conclusion. First, the chemical composition
of plastic contains more carbon than that of urea and
ammonia combined, so even if there is no chimney, a
significant amount of carbon will be left over from the
process. The second problem is the destination of the urea
and ammonia themselves.
The Questions
Urea is used as an artificial fertilizer, and, according to the
chemicals industry trade site, chemicals-technology.com,
the urea produced by the plant would be transported out
of the port by 35 ships every year. The green ammonia,
meanwhile, would be fed into the port’s chemical cluster
with pipelines, eliminating the need to transport the
chemicals. But the ultimate impact of the plant’s products
remains unclear. When asked, the Port of Antwerp did not
comment on the chemicals’ final destination.
A recent study by Bond Beter Leefmilieu (BBL), an
umbrella group of Belgium’s environmental organizations,
sheds more light on the plant and raises more questions
about how it will function in reality. According to study in
the project’s second phase, the plant would be processing
three times more waste than initially announced.
ERS has called the Antwerp plant “the first of its kind,”
and while innovative technology is crucial in the recycling
sector, the plant’s unprecedented size brings great
uncertainty. According to BBL, worldwide, there is no
incinerator or gasification plant that processes 3.5 million
tons of waste per year, which makes it extremely difficult
to assess its impact and feasibility.
Similar waste gasification plants have been built in the
past, the most notable of these constructed by Swiss
company Thermoselect. According to a 2013 study by the
American Chemistry Council, however, these facilities have
been far less cost-efficient than promised. “Several have
been closed due to economic pressures [specifically] the
price of energy and high costs of operation] and pressures
from the environmental community in Europe,” the report
noted. Two of those facilities, built in Germany and Italy in
the 1990s, are now closed.
Asked to comment on the Bond Beter Leefmilieu study,
the Port of Antwerp declined to comment on the size of
the plant and said the negotiations with ERS will continue.
In a statement, the port said, “The public debate will be
held once the full picture is available. The matter concerns
an enormous investment with a lot of stakeholders.
Submitting a clear project is more important than timing.”
The plant’s construction will begin in a couple of years,
but whether the project will be as “green” as initially
announced remains to be seen.
21. 21A Global Business Journalism Incubator
When Recycling Isn’t as Green as It Seems
By: NICOLE PFEFFERLE | December 16, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/12/when-recycling-isnt-as-green-as-it-seems/
The Business of Waste
“That kills me,” said Lewis Akenji pointing at the water
dispenser in the hallway of the Congress Center with a
recycling bin right next to it. “That gives you the message
it’s OK: Just drink and drop, it’s gonna be taken care off.”
Akenji, who is with the Japan-based think tank Institute
for Global Environmental Strategies, was speaking at
October’s World Resources Forum (WRF) in Davos,
Switzerland, where many of the world’s environmental
experts had gathered to discuss how to create an
economy largely without waste. In most major European
cities, recycling bins have replaced traditional waste bins,
and recycling stations for special materials, such as metals
and batteries, are often located close to supermarkets.
In Europe, we now have little excuse for not separating
our garbage, and the rate for recycled disposals is steadily
increasing: According to EU statistics, 28 percent of all
waste in Europe was recycled in 2013, up from 26 percent
the year before. In 2014, as part of its “circular economy”
strategy, the European Commission adopted a waste
management proposal that aims for recycling rates to
increase from 70 percent up to 90 percent, depending
on the material, and a reduction in the amount of
landfills. The proposal’s purpose is to secure access to raw
materials and to create jobs.
We, like our governments, have largely come to think
of recycling as having no downside. But recycling is not
always the most sustainable option. Recycling is greatly
pushed in government policy, but waste reduction and
prevention are more rarely found in legislation. With an
increasing demand for resources, recycling has turned
into a profitable business and the industry is booming. But
some are questioning its long-term sustainability. For its
critics, the ability to recycle distracts from more profitable,
and more green, waste-reduction strategies. Perhaps most
striking, an awareness of recycling can make people more
likely to consume more.
“Recycling policies are almost like giving a safety net to
governments. Everything they want to do is promote
recycling,” Akenji said. “Because we know that we
can recycle in the end, we just keep turning out more
material.”
This is not to say that we should not recycle. Treating
waste as a valuable resource not only minimizes it but
is also an effective way to conserve energy and natural
resources. Even waste that is not recyclable can be turned
into energy. In Sweden, 20 percent of all households are
heated by non-recyclable material, and buses in major
Swedish cities run on biogas.
“Recycling is very necessary but not enough,” said Sanna
Due Sjöström, chair of the Nordic Council of Ministers’
Nordic Waste Group. She offered the example of food
waste in Sweden. Knowing that food waste can be turned
into fuel, consumers there see little need to throw less
away, even though biofuel can recover only 10 percent
of the energy used for the initial production of food. As
Akenji noted, recycling itself can be relatively energy-
intensive.
Due Sjöström argues for an expansion of regulations to
create longer product life spans and increased reparability,
and for a shift away from the focus on recycling. “It is
extremely more valuable to prevent waste in the first
place,” she said. For example, Sweden could save 13
billion to 19 billion Swedish kronor (about 1.3 million
to 1.9 million euros) just by preventing 20 percent food
waste, according to a new Nordic Waste Council report to
be published in the coming weeks.
22. 22 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
Kamila Guimarães de Moraes, an author and
environmental lawyer, summed up the view of many who
fear recycling is potentially deceptive in its promises of
ecological sustainability: “We simply need to consume
fewer resources.”
Most of those involved in promoting recycling or resource
efficiency suggest that for recycling to be sustainable, it
has to be incorporated more completely into products’
life cycle. That is, their eventual recycling should be built
into their design from the beginning. For de Moraes, it’s
important to reconnect recycling to the production cycle
and provide insights from recycling processes to the
beginning of the value chain to improve product design.
Concerns about recycling are not widely held among
environmental experts, and most see little realistic
alternatives that can manage the world’s waste problems
as effectively.
“Recycling is the best option to get back our raw
materials,” said Mathias Schluep, a WRF program director
who also works with the Swiss State Secretariat of
Economic Affairs (SECO) on recycling projects. “Feeding
disposed materials back into the value chain closes the
loop and makes recycling per se sustainable.”
One SECO-funded project, Sustainable Recycling Industries
(SRI), conducts “life cycle inventories” to improve the
environmental and social effects of recycling in developing
countries and also encourages sustainable recycling
methods among waste companies and informal waste
collectors. Schluep also pointed out that recycling provides
workplaces and livelihoods in many developing countries.
He sees limited possibilities for transferring recycling
knowledge to the design of products; incentives are
missing for the producer, he said, and capacities are
limited. Therefore, SRI does not proactively advise product
designers. The same applies for the incinerator industry.
Roland Weippert, an expert in metal recycling after
incineration, agrees that there are few means so far to
advise product designers on increasing recyclability.
Harald Mattenberger, an environmental scientist, has
given up on cellphones, and instead of a computer he uses
a secondhand tablet. During an interview, he walked off
to search for the switch off the light—to keep his resource
consumption to a minimum. While most of us probably
could not imagine life without a cellphone, the principle of
a shared economy has become increasingly popular. Many
who believe more fundamental alterations are needed
for our economy think it is necessary to create a system
where people will want to follow Mattenberger’s example
of consuming less.
“We need to create a context in which sustainable
consumption is default and much easier,” Akenji
suggested.
One radical way this might be achieved was suggested
by Anders Wijkman, a senior adviser to the Stockholm
Environment Institute, who said our economy needs to
shift from one where we own and then dispose of our
products to one where we rent them until they are no
longer needed and are recycled once more. He asked why
he needs to own his computer, his cellphone or even his
clothes.
For Wijkman, the answer is clear: “We need new business
models, instead of just making profit by producing new
stuff all the time.”
23. 23A Global Business Journalism Incubator
How the World Resources Forum Came to Be
By: JULIE ANN AELBRECHT | October 14, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/10/how-the-world-resources-forum-came-to-be/
Special Feature: The Evolution of an Environmental Conference - World Resources Forum
“Some participants have said that the World Resources
Forum (WRF) is actually the real World Economic Forum
because here they talk about the issues that are truly
important,” says Bas de Leeuw, managing director of the
WRF, a sustainability-focused nonprofit that produces
conferences around the world. The conference’s flagship
event is held every two years in Davos, Switzerland , the
same location as the World Economic Forum meetings,
where the world’s richest and most powerful gather to
discuss the fate of the planet.
Having started out as conferences focused on recycling ,
with 200 participants, in the 1990s to become an annual
Forum twice the size, the World Resources Forum has come
a long way since its inception.
“Well before my time, the R-conferences in the 1990s were
biannual gatherings organized by EMPA [Swiss Federal
Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology],” he
says. These conferences initially focused on the technical
aspects of recycling and were geared towards engineers
and scientists. As recycling became a more prominent
theme, people started to realize that it was more than a
technical problem, that it would affect production and
consumption.
“During the R07 [2007] conference in Davos, they decided
to rebrand it to the World Resources Forum, almost as an
answer to the World Economic Forum.”
De Leeuw came on board in 2011, as EMPA pulled out of
the organization to focus on its research activities, and the
WRF took its current form. “I think, apart from size, the
most important difference with the R-conferences, is that
we include people from all scientific disciplines, sociologists,
psychologists, as well as businesses, governmental
organizations,” he explains.
Bas de Leeuw
speaking at day
one at WRF 2015.
Photo courtesy of the
World Resources Forum
The WRF’s goal is not necessarily to become the biggest,
as De Leeuw puts a strong emphasis on the quality of the
event. “It’s impossible to measure impact. Not everybody
understands the complexity of the problem. For instance,
someone asked us to measure the difference between the
pollution and resource use before and after the conference.
We started to laugh out loud.”
He hopes to make the WRF the go-to yearly gathering
for scientists, companies and governments: “There is so
much science already but what is missing is the connection
between the right people. Only reports don’t work.
Conferences alone do not change the world, but you need
them to bring people together.”
The first annual conference outside of Davos was held
in Beijing in 2012 together with the Chinese Academy
of Science. Ever since, the WRF returns to Davos every
other year. Regional conferences also started up this year
with an Asia Pacific-focused meeting, in Sydney, Australia.
“By inviting regional scientists, businesses, NGOs and
governments, and focusing on local issues and activities, we
also hope to make them more practical,” says de Leeuw.
The last full-scale WRF to take place outside of Davos, in
Arequipa, Peru, attracted more than 1000 participants. One
of them was Ana Quiros, who will organize the next regional
conference in Costa Rica.
Quiros, a risk assessment engineer in construction has
worked on environmental issues through the UNEP
Lifecycle Initiative since 2002. “Last year, I went to the
World Resources Forum in Arequipa. I thought, what a drive
this institute has, bringing together academia, businesses
and actually pushing to change minds.” In the regional
conference next year, she will focus her efforts on the
construction industry: “the construction sector involves so
many resources and stakeholders, it seemed like a logical
partnership.”
WRF 2014 in Peru.
Photo courtesy of the World Resources Forum
As far as Costa Rica’s particular challenges are concerned,
Quiros reckons they’re rather typical for a nation in
transition. “The most important thing is changing the way
we understand sustainability as a society. For businesses
and government alike, sustainability is in their rhetoric,
but not embedded in their practices.” As an example, she
mentioned a recent decree that would allow municipalities
to build incinerators to deal with their waste.
“A topic I was missing in most of the workshops [at the
WRF], is corruption. I believe this is a significant issue for
Costa Rica and Latin America. There cannot be sustainability
if we do not change the way we are doing business.”
In the presence of the Costa Rican ambassador, Ana Quiros
will announce her plans for the 2016 regional World
Resources Forum in San José, Costa Rica during the press
conference on Wednesday.
According to de Leeuw, there is a lot of demand for more
regional conferences, but only one in ten gets approval;
“we are looking for support from government, scientific
partners and businesses. We do not just plant our flag in
different cities, we are looking for true partnerships with
the local organization.”
24. 24 A Global Business Journalism Incubator
The Long Road: 650 Participants, 109 Countries and
720 tons of CO2
By: MELANIE STUDER | October 14, 2015
http://projourno.org/2015/10/the-long-road-650-participants-109-countries-and-720-tons-of-co2/
Special Feature: The Evolution of an Environmental Conference - World Resources Forum
DAVOS, Switzerland—Standing upright and proud, Bas
de Leeuw, managing director of the World Resources
Forum, announced at the opening session that the World
Resources Forum 2015 will be carbon neutral.
While offsetting CO2 emissions may be a means for
compensation, for conference organizers and participants,
it’s not as easy to walk the talk.
One car, two planes and three trains later, Hossam Allam,
Cairo-based regional program manager at the Centre
of Environment and Development for the Arab Region
and Europe, is happy to be arrived in Davos. “In my
organization–even if it is an environmental one–the rule
is that you have to buy the cheapest ticket not the least
carbon intensive one, which would be a direct flight,” he
says.
Allam is one of nearly 650 participants from 109*
countries who came to Davos to discuss the circular
economy, resources efficiency and sustainable lifestyles
and education. The record number of both participants
and countries represented is worth celebrating. “We
need people from all over the world to make a change
and spread our message,” Klaus Wiesen, project leader
in sustainable consumption and production from the
Wuppertal Institut in Germany, says excitedly.
But due to this increase in number of participants from far-
away countries, the WRF 2015 has a larger footprint per
participant than WRF 2013, which was the previous time
the WRF was at Davos. This is despite numerous efforts to
minimize the environmental impact of the conference.
“This year, we decided to make the menus vegetarian
by default and to print less conference material,” says
de Leeuw. While every bit helps, this good intention can
however be hardly noticeable in the overall impact of the
conference. This year, traveling accounts for 95% of the 720
tons of CO2 emissions related to the conference.
Altogether, the impact of the conference is equivalent to
the annual average carbon impact of 140 Swiss citizens.
Offsetting will cost about 9000 CHF; the equivalent of 10
conference tickets (the full conference fee being 970 CHF
per person).
The question remains, is this carbon impact worth it? “If I
can pick up let alone one idea that I can replicate at a large
scale, then it is worth it,” answers Mukesh Gulati, Delhi-
baed executive director of Foundation for Micro Small and
Medium Enterprises Clusters.
Another participant from Belgium who preferred to stay
anonymous adds, “Bas de Leuw promised us that our
carbon impact was compensated so our consciousness is
okay now.”
In the audience, a feeling of both responsibility and
guilty ignorance seems to reign. “I don't want to know
my ecological footprint,” confesses Allam with an
uncomfortable laugh, “because it's huge.”
If one participant would know his ecological footprint I
thought, it had to be Mathis Wackernagel, who co-founded
the Global Footprint Network in 2004 after inventing the
concept in 1994. Indeed, he knew. Every year, Wackernagel
consumes as much carbon as about eight average citizens
do in India he says.
"In our institute we more or less agreed, there is a phrase
for that 'Not behind your front door'," says a group of
participants who preferred to stay anonymous. "We are all
employees of an environmental institute. We talk about
environmental issues in the public domain but not behind
our front door...we hope that our professional projects have
a positive effect and create greater good but we don’t talk
about our own carbon impact.”
*While we counted 109 countries, there are 10 participants
who did not indicate their country.
Where do WRF 2015 participants come from?
